AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You don’t need them.”
“I refuse to walk these halls ass naked for anyone to see because you refused to let me put some clothes on.”
Valentino ignores my very valid protests and drags me toward his bedroom. Inside, he marches toward a set of double doors. He walks through them to a huge walk-in closet. In seconds, he returns with a pajama shirt.
“Wear this,” he says. Without giving me time to react, he dresses me in the night shirt, which falls to my thighs. A satisfied sigh escapes him and he tugs me toward the bed where he tucks me in.
“And for the record, no one on my staff will ever see you naked and live to remember. No one ever.” Valentino disrobes and joins me under the covers completely naked.
It takes everything in me not to comment on the weapon dangling between his legs. Common sense tells me I should run because he will put me in a wheelchair, but my pussy leaks with renewed arousal. I’m not a size whore, or I never saw myself as such, but Valentino is unwittingly unearthing desires inside me. I have to have faith that everything will work out. After all, his former partners survived their one night with him. There’s no way I’m weaker than those high society women.
“Big spoon or little spoon?” he asks, interrupting my pep talk.
I eye him in silence while I mull over my choices. “Big spoon,” I say.
He turns his back to me and I curl around him. Even if I’d planned to leave him during the night, I won’t be able to. Not once he imprisons my arms under his and holds my hands against his heart. The soothing rhythm and Valentino’s comforting scent lull me to sleep. With an extra squeeze, I try to convince myself this is not a dream. I’m actually here in Valentino’s bed, holding one of the men who has dominated my heart for so long. My heart has never been lighter. A smile stretches my face as I succumb to sleep.
Tomorrow will be a new day; one I hope proves that I am enough for Valentino and that this feeling inside me will last.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Tácito
Darkness shrouds the sky, though it will lose its dominance in less than an hour. In the early morning hours, I trudge to Valentino’s—our front door, each step weighted by exhaustion. I tiredly wave to the men on patrol, safe in the knowledge that the sleepy house and its occupants are well guarded.
If not for Valentino, I would have headed to my old place, but he insisted I move in. He may come to regret his decision if our unconventional relationship with Sloane ever leaks, but I’m too tired to care about those problems at the moment.
I enter the front door and let the vibrations from the home settle in my bones. Home… Yes, this has felt more like home since Sloane’s injury. She occupies most of my thoughts. She is the first hit of caffeine I need to start my day, and the dopamine I need before I can sleep easily at night.
As the natural stillness settles into my bones, I take my first easy breath since leaving two days ago. Being on call and away from Sloane is more difficult now that she is close by. During her enlistment and afterward when she became an assassin-for-hire, I forced myself not to dwell on the emptiness she left with her long absences. I doubt I could survive her disappearing acts now that I’ve kissed, seen, spoken, and eaten with her almost daily.
Suddenly, I’m at her open door without making a conscious decision to move. Her sweet scent is faded and the warmth I usually feel upon crossing the threshold is missing. I’ve gotten used to my body’s response to Sloane. She has a stranglehold on me down to the molecular level now. Whenever she is in the vicinity, my cells call out to be near her the same as my heart. When she isn’t, I experience early withdrawal like an addict.
Who am I kidding? I’m not like an addict. I am an addict and Sloane is my drug. And I need my next hit, but she isn’t here. Panic’s tendrils crawl up my spine until I remember where I am. Valentino never sent a message, the house is dark instead of in chaos, and the guards I passed weren’t on high alert.
She’s still here.
I walk over to the bed where satin cloth puddles in the middle of the mattress. One conclusion comes to mind. They’ve come to an agreement, though I have no idea what solution they settled on. I hope Valentino talked her into our arrangement without her caveats, but I doubt it. I press my lips together to keep from freeing the curse there.
Sloane matches us for stubbornness. She will have gotten at least one concession, and neither one bodes well for my peace of mind. I won’t dwell on it until I have more details. For now, I need my nightly dose of Sloane. Since she’s not in her room, there is only one place I can think Valentino would take her.
I follow my instincts and enter the master bedroom to find her wrapped around Valentino. A memory of her doing the same thing flashes in my mind.
We were eight and having a sleepover at Valentino’s house. I was so jealous of how close they were. When I approached to pull them apart, she turned on her back and blinked at me.
“What took you so long?” She signed then pulled me onto the bed and wrapped my arm around her waist. “That’s better.” She tapped the message on my arm, the precursor to the devices we wear to communicate today. With a deep sigh, she snuggled into me and fell asleep.
Meanwhile, I couldn’t move. She’d trapped my hand in a viselike grip that no eight year old should have the strength to maintain. Once I realized she couldn’t rest until I joined them, I relaxed and curled around her body, inhaling her scent and falling deeper under a spell she probably never knew she’d cast. That night was the first time I realized I always wanted to be the man to ease her worries.
As I watch her now, her rest isn’t fitful. I can’t seem to quiet the medical voice in my head as I observe her for discomfort. If doing so wouldn’t wake her, I would probe the few bandaged wounds that remain on her body. Instead, I admire her sleeping form.
She wears a man’s pajama top. I shake my head because I understand what drove Valentino to claim her this way. She sure as hell wears it better than Valentino ever did.
Sloane twists her body, and without opening her eyes, she reaches for my hand and taps, “You’re finally home. Join us.”
How could I resist such an invitation? My heartbeat accelerates, but I don’t hesitate to do her bidding. Under the covers, I wrap my arm around her waist and breathe her in deeply. Sloane is a dichotomy of strength and softness: firm muscles, supple skin, and a body that can melt or stiffen depending on the scenario.
She has always been my ideal. Rather, she created my ideal because as she matures and changes, so does everything I want in my future. I fall asleep with my face pressed to her hair.
